With a startled breath, Molok awoke for the first time in millions of years.

Sluggishly pulling himself up out of the cocoon-like hibernation capsule into a standing position, the reptilian instinctively leaned for the nearest heat source.

Once his thermostatic equilibrium was restored and he was fully roused, he looked around. The underground city was not as he remembered it. Silicate strata had formed around every surface. Incredibly, very little had been damaged in the interim, with the exception of the chronometer - it was impossible to say how long they had slept, except that it must at minimum be in excess of a million years.

So far adrift in time... What had become of their beloved homeworld on the surface? Had the planet recovered at last from the dreaded coming of the ice? What strange new life forms had evolved in their absence? Was there a new dominant civilisation somewhere above them, even now milling across the skin of the world, unsuspecting that their predecessors lay in waiting mere miles below them?

The answer came swiftly when discovering the reason for the awakening. The systems responsible for timekeeping - and thus, their "alarm clock" - had been damaged. But the security systems had not. A breach had been detected, and so the first sleepers had been awoken to investigate.

Molok activated a sonic scanner - remarkably, still functional - and awaited the results.

The sonar-like equipment quickly identified the source of the intrusion: a vertical shaft had been drilled several miles deep, that had run into their underground city's defence net.

The letters emblazoned on the side of the massive drill that lay within the shaft - "STAHLMAN FRACKING CO." - meant nothing to Molok. To him, the purpose was all too clear: the surface dwellers, whoever they were, intended to find and destroy them.

Unless his people destroyed them first.

Setting the controls to awaken more of his people, Molok decided not to wait before venturing out to find a way up to the surface. He had to see for himself what had become of the world above.

Venturing out into the caves, Molok shivered at the instant the cool air hit his scaled skin. It was uncomfortable, but survivable.

Slipping through a narrow crack in a naturally formed barrier that had sprung up in the millennia since he last ventured out of the city, Molok could hear voices in the cavern ahead. Intelligent, unsuspecting voices. It seemed the intruders would soon make themselves known to him.

He turned a corner and came face to face with three figures, all clad in strange reflective materials and bearing lights on their heads. Warm-blooded. Bipedal. Upright. It was terrifying - like a strange upright-walking ape.

Molok had just a moment to take in the terrible prospect that the apes had inherited the Earth.

The figures, clearly just as disturbed at Molok's intrusion as he was at theirs, shouted at each other frantically. One fled. Another raised some kind of weapon at Molok - primitive compared to their heat projection technology, but dangerous nonetheless. Molok pre-emptively attacked, his third eye glowing as the ape clutched at his head and doubled over in pain - but the other ape took the weapon.

BANG! The projectile struck Molok in the shoulder, breaking his concentration and throwing him off balance. He fled, bleeding, further into the tunnels, while the ape-like beings, still recovering from the ordeal, took stock. "What was that thing?", one questioned aloud, the voice carried by the strange acoustic qualities of the rocks.

Sunlight! Molok scrambled up the passage, at last tasting fresh air - and with it, freedom. Clutching at his arm, wincing in pain at each shift, he burst out into the sunlight, basking in its warmth - and then gazed in shock at the flat scrublands surrounding him. A giant structure - the drill - loomed in the distance.

Spying a wooden habitation nearby, Molok limped onward. Shutting the door, Molok collapsed in a hay pile, lamely clawing straw over himself for warmth and camouflage.

Hide. Save energy. Need to treat arm soon.